Research
My research interests mainly concern young people's life situations, gender, place, belonging, racism, migration, and anti-racist and critical social work.
Current research projects
Girls in homelessness. Living conditions, senses of belonging and senses of home
The project’s aim is to contribute knowledge about girls' own experiences of living in homelessness, with focus on their living conditions, and senses of belonging and home. The project has an ethnographic approach, including visual ethnography. It's focus is on 15-24-year-old people who identify as girls, and who have the experience of homelessness without their parents before the age of 18, as they are sleeping rough or only have temporary shelter. The project is funded by The Swedish Research Council.
Girls in criminal gangs
The aim of this study is to contribute with in-depth knowledge of girls' lives and participation in criminal gangs. The main interest lies in how the way into the gang, the participation in the gang and, if they left, the way out of the gang is described. The project is funded by Forte.
Growing up as a girl in deprived areas - lived experiences, stakeholders and community work
The aim of this study is to contribute with knowledge on girls’ lives in deprived areas. This is attained by investigating how girls growing up in deprived areas orientate themselves, and by investigating societal stakeholders’ reasoning on girls’ living conditions in deprived areas. The project is funded by Forte.
TESMI - The Tensions of Street-level Social Work for Migrant Inclusion — Discretion, Differentiation and Deportability
The main objective of this project is to provide relevant knowledge of the street-level social work that takes place within contemporary integration regimes. It aims to explore how street-level social work within contemporary integration regimes is enacted, experienced and understood among social workers and migrants based on recent political and demographic shifts in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. TESMI conceptualises the political-institutional framework through the notions of discretion, deportability and differentiation. The project is funded by NordForsk.
Previous research projects
From Young Migrants to 'Good Swedes'. Belonging and the Manifestations of Borders and Boundaries in NGO Social Work
PhD thesis, where I studied NGO social work with young people who had applied for asylum in Sweden without legal guardians and were placed in kinship care. Focus was on constructions of the young people's situations and needs, and what consequences the constructions can have for social work, as well as the young people's own perspectives on place, relationships, everyday life, and belonging.
Teaching
I am teaching on the Bachelor and Master programmes in Social Work, with focus on criminality, place, postcolonial theories, migration, and issues of racism. I am assistant supervisor to a PhD student in Social Work, and supervise graduate and postgraduate students in Social Work.
Collaboration
I am a member of KuFo (the research group for culture studies), and the Centre for Gender Studies at Karlstad University.
I am also participating in FlickForsk! Nordic Network for Girlhood Studies, which is a multidisciplinary network for researchers who study young femininity from different perspectives.
Bio
I have a PhD in Social Work. I have previous training in Social Anthropology, and Anthropology and Cultural Politics.